After a barrage of wicked nor’easters this winter, Massachusetts residents probably aren’t worried about having too much sun — but they should be.
Over in Hawaii, California and Arizona, middaysolargeneration has begun to cause major swings in the balance of supply and demand on the grid. The resulting “duck curve” has become emblematic of the logistical challenges involved in massive renewables adoption.
As it turns out, this duck infestation is migrating from the sunny, palm-lined enclaves of Venice Beach and Scottsdale to the Bay State.
“We are absolutely beginning to see a duck curve,” said Judith Judson, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, in an interview at the Energy Storage Association conference in Boston last week. “It shows that we’re being very successful in increasing renewable energy generation, but we need to start thinking about…how [we can] match up that generation with demand.”
The telltale shape of the duck is appearing in the daily energy charts from ISO New England, the grid operator for Massachusetts and five neighboring states. The ISO has about 2,400 megawatts of cumulative solar capacity, most of which is small-scale.
Massachusetts represents almost half of the load in the territory, and the bulk of the solar capacity too. The data covers more than just Massachusetts, but the state drives regional trends.
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